


what a concept!

by TheLillie



Category: The Magnus Archives (Podcast)
Genre: Between Episodes, Character Study, Ethical Dilemmas, LOVE WON'T SAVE US BUT IT CAN'T HURT!, Martin Blackwood's Poetry, Missing Scene, Multi, Poetry, Random & Short, between 'like ants' and 'locked in', between mag184 and mag185, kinda speedwrote this and am still cutting it stupidly close to tomorrow's episodes release, love won't save us...but it can't hurt, martin blackwood's...mediocre but heartfelt improv poetry, what numbers are those
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-11-05
Updated: 2020-11-05
Packaged: 2021-03-09 02:15:48
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,603
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27397075
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/TheLillie/pseuds/TheLillie
Summary: Martin was right―why did one person get to be treated any differently from another in all this horror, just because of what Jon decided they needed?“You really loved her, didn’t you?”
Relationships: Jonathan "Jon" Sims | The Archivist & Alice "Daisy" Tonner, Martin Blackwood/Jonathan "Jon" Sims | The Archivist
Comments: 4
Kudos: 36





	what a concept!

**Author's Note:**

> because im forever obsessed with [this piece](https://twinkle-art.tumblr.com/post/619308351498715136/what-a-concept)

The spaces between domains weren’t really better or worse, necessarily; just a different kind of bad. Instead of specific malevolence trapping people into a carefully-catered nightmare, it was bare and untamed―features of the landscape lashed out randomly, transformed into a snake or a snare or a ledge right when you stepped on it, clawed down from a tree or poured blood like rain. Nobody was consigned to these in-between paths, so there weren’t any statements to give, so Martin would occasionally give sarcastic thanks that they got to have these little horrors all to just the two of them―but sometimes there’d be a corpse. Someone whose fear had all been completely drained out, and who’d been dumped on the wayside, an emptied and useless husk. Jon tried to keep them steered out of the way of those.

After the anthill, the landscape had become rocky and sloped, with narrow pillars forming an uneven downward staircase. They weren’t so difficult as to actually put them in danger of falling, but Martin still clung tight to Jon’s hand and followed his steps almost exactly.

“Doing alright?” Jon asked at the bottom of the slope.

Martin reached forward to clasp both Jon’s hands, and hopped the final step onto flatter ground. “As ever. You?”

“Yeah.”

Down here the ground was gravel, hard white chunks and shards and pebbles―bone. Human and animal alike. A small fraction of it was those who’d died after the change; another fraction was constructed artificially by the fear of remnant and decay; most of it was just the old natural dead, dug up and broken and scattered. There were even a few fossils buried somewhere in there, crunching under their feet. Martin made a small noise of distaste, but kept hold on Jon's hand and kept pace right beside him.

“Hey," he said after a moment. “Can I ask a hard question?”

Jon smirked and put on the Spooky Voice that'd been making Martin laugh pretty reliably lately. “There are no hard questions for _ the Archivist.” _

“I mean, like, emotionally.”

Jon's smirk faded. No laugh, then. “Okay. Shoot.”

“Is Jordan going to end up like Daisy?”

Oh.

Very, very far from a laugh.

Jon didn’t let go of Martin’s hand, but he did go a little limp. 

“He's not going to kill anyone,” he said. “And he's not...I don't think he's going to go anywhere. He still can't leave the anthill.”

“You know what I mean. She was...Daisy wasn't herself anymore, from the moment she gave in back at the Institute. She just went completely―sh-she couldn't even hardly speak English at the end, y'know? And she didn't recognize anyone but Basira. She was gone. An―and Basira had to kill her. Had to.”

“I think that was more for Basira's sake than anyone else,” Jon mused. “Just to sort of...solidify the decision she’d made not to fully join the Hunt herself.”

“Wh―” Martin sputtered. “What, so that whole ordeal was because  _ you _ decided Basira needed the character development?”

Jon flinched. “No, that’s―she was going to do it anyway, so―”

“Was she, though? She was hesitating! Daisy gave her a chance to join her and you said yourself she would have taken it―and you’re fine  _ making  _ Jordan an avatar, but Daisy had to die and Basira had to kill her and―”

“She asked her!” Jon said sharply, cutting Martin into silence. “Daisy asked Basira to kill her, she―she asked her to promise. Before...before she got lost. She asked. And Basira promised. And I…”

He trailed off. Because how could he finish that sentence? He wanted to do as Daisy asked, but why did what he wanted matter? In any of this? Martin was right―why did one person get to be treated any differently from another in all this horror, just because of what Jon decided they needed?

“You really loved her, didn’t you?”

Jon looked up. “What?”

“Daisy.” Martin touched his hand, but didn’t make much of a move to take it―just reminded him he was there, that he wasn’t going anywhere. “It’s okay, I’m not jealous, it’s just―I know what it was like, and for once, I’m not jealous.”

Jon stopped walking. They weren’t yet at their next destination, but he stopped and went still anyway, eyes focused on the edge of the white gravel path. If he kept his real eyes focused there, he could almost tune out everything else he saw.

“I saw the two of you together once,” Martin said, “after you pulled her out of the Coffin. I was just sort of...lurking, I guess, seeing what I was missing. You were lying in her lap on the couch in the break room, legs all tangled, wearing the same pair of earphones. One in her ear, one in yours, listening to something on her phone.”

There had been a lot of moments like that for a while; Jon wouldn’t have been able to pick out which specific instance unless he Looked into Martin’s memory, so he tried to stick close to his own. The easiest memory he could focus on was the first time she’d asked him to sit with her like that. He’d been wary of getting too close to her, putting on too much pressure, but she said it was nice to feel something warm and living―and something she knew she could easily throw off if needed. He asked her not to throw him too far. She told him to just sit down, you arse, I’m not actually gonna throw you, I really don’t mind having the bit of weight on me. Keeps me grounded. Keeps me from running away.

“And say what you will about bonding through trauma, but I think the reason you were even able to save her was because you loved her already. Sure you didn’t think so at the time, but you did.”

Jon ticked his tongue, stepping forward slowly. “Maybe if I’d known Jordan better, I could have loved him, too. Loved him enough to leave him alone.”

“You loved him enough to try what you could.”

“I only met him once.”

“You cared about him. You recognized him and went after him and tried to help him. You wanted to ease his suffering. Why not call that love?”

They reached the edge. Before them now was a sidewalk, well-tended and stark, leading up to distant barbed-wire gate before a huge concrete block of a building.

“Is that something out of a poem?” Jon asked with a soft nudge of his knuckles on Martin’s hip.

Martin smiled. “Not yet, anyway.”

“‘Ode on an Apocalypse,’ by Martin Kingsley Blackwood.”

_ “Kingsley?” _

“No? I don’t know, I’ve been sort of..scanning through names in my head, I thought that one sounded―”

“Kingsley! It’s a bit much, isn’t it?”

“All right, all right, we’ll just stick with K.” Jon leaned his head onto Martin’s shoulder, weaving their arms together like vines. “Spin me a poem before we go in, Martin K.”

Martin hummed a short note, thinking, and Jon stared up at the prison they were about to enter. It was too far to hear anything from here, or to see any details beyond the building’s silhouette; the sidewalk was intentionally long, drinking in the dread of anticipation, the ache of legs and the sinking of hearts as you shuffle in a line of chains that nearly feels endless―and you almost wish it were, but you know there is an end to the line, an end to the walk, an end to the sky above and the illusion of having a chance to turn back―

“Ode on an Apocalypse.”

Jon sucked in a silent breath, and looked away from the prison.

“Though it won’t follow structure,” Martin said. “But then again, what use have we of structure?

* * *

The world that had a meaning passed away,

So all that could be meaning, we must make.

Good and bad and punishment and joy―

All we have is...holding hands with a boy.

A man, all right, don’t roll your eyes at me.

Just don’t let go. I’ll feel what I can’t see.

Just don’t let go and I won’t let go of you,

_ whatever’s  _ next,  _ hold on.  _ We’ll make it through.

I don’t care if it’s cheesy. You try improvising something better.

We call it love to stand here, arm in arm,

and promise to be steadfast through the harm;

We call it love to call someone your own,

Your friend, your boyfriend, mother, child, home;

I think it’s love to see someone in pain

and try out the impossible―to change.

To change ourselves or change them or the world

In quiet, or beneath a flag unfurled.

To hold on after every loss we’re hurled.

Just don’t let go, okay?

It’s love and it’s what we’ve got.

Tell me love won’t save us.

* * *

“Go on, tell me.”

Jon stammered, caught off-guard. “I-I mean, it certainly won’t completely undo fear as an abstract concept, but―”

“Well, screw that,” Martin said. “It can’t hurt.”

He said it in meter, and in definitive finality, and he cracked a grin at the end. Jon couldn’t help rolling his eyes again. “Ah. You were just using me to complete the poem.”

“Experimenting with audience interaction,” Martin beamed. “Hey, do you think any tape recorders picked that up?”

“No. I think that was just for the two of us.”

“Well, you’d better hold it safe in your head, then.”

Jon lifted their hands together and stepped onto the sidewalk. He didn’t plan on letting go.

**Author's Note:**

> love won't save us but it can't hurt! love won't save us but it can't hurt! loVE WON'T SAVE US BUT IT CAN'T HURT! LOVE WON'T SAVE US BUT IT CAN'T HU--


End file.
